The 7 Apps We Rely On To Run Our Marketing Agency

Just a handful of years ago, you were the cool guy if you had a beeper. Now, its impossible to get by with out a smartphone with a huge data plan.

…heck…even my car has wifi.

And I can’t imagine being without it now.

While that may be a little extreme, you can’t deny that adapting to technology is crucial. If you aren’t using it, your business will be left behind.

These are 7 of the apps we use to run our marketing agency.

Slack

If there was a Usain Bolt equivalent of apps, it would be Slack, an enterprise application that grew 667 percent in 2015.

The free messaging app boasts to be for “team communication for the 21st century”, and allows channels to be created for different team conversations, including private ones.

All files and images can be dropped into the app and shared with colleagues, while any files on Google Drive, Dropbox or Box can also be synced to and searched on Slack.

Oh, did we forget to mention that NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory also uses Slack? I mean, if it works for them…

ToDoist

If you’re looking for a to-do app that works on all your devices, has great features for monitoring your productivity, and lets you geek out with how you organize your tasks, Todoist is the app for you.

This excellent productivity service has apps and plugins for mobile devices, email, browsers, as well as laptop and desktop computers. It even supports collaboration, so you can share your tasks and projects with others.

There is a free version, but I grabbed the premium for $29. Worth every penny.

Ecover Wizard

This is one of our in house apps. It makes it easy to create gorgeous 3D renderings of flat images to use as “hero shots”. We’ll make 3D book covers for our clients books, TV’s for their media appearances, software boxes for trainings we sell, etc.

You just upload an image, pick the design you want, and press enter. Super easy to use.

SaneBox

SaneBox works with your existing email service, so you don’t have to install any new apps or learn a new interface.

It goes into your email on the back end and figures out what’s important and what’s not, moving everything in the latter group to a folder that you can check on periodically.

It is easily among the top productivity apps I’ve ever used.

Clarify

Clarify is a smart, well-designed app that allows users to capture multiple images, add annotations and compile everything into one concise document. Clarify is a positive step between the standard screenshot app and screen recording.

It allows you to capture, edit and share without using multiple apps. Clarify streamlines the process and simplifies workflows.

We use it to crank out step-by-step instructions for our clients and products.

Keeper

As a password manager, Keeper has the basics covered. It captures login info and passwords for you as you browse the Web, securely stores them in a neatly organized vault that’s easy to access, and generates passwords for you on the fly.

I’ve not used any other, so I can’t give too much comparison. But this one keeps me from having to remember a zillion passwords.

Category Detective

Its specifically for consultants that do Kindle and book publishing for their clients. It allows you to drill down to different categories in Amazon and see how difficult it would be to hit a #1 best seller in it.

Well…that’s it. Those are 7 of the apps we use almost daily in our marketing agency. Click the play button above to find out exactly how we use them.

Brian Ainsley Horn is considered to be the "pioneer of authority marketing", which has exploded in popularity recently. His unique methods have been talked about and covered on The Howard Stern Show, Wall Street Journal, ABC, Perez Hilton, CBS News , Forbes, Advertising Age and dozens of other media outlets. Brian is the co-founder of the consulting firm, Authority Alchemy, and also writes for Huffington Post and Entrepreneur Magazine about authority marketing and personal branding.